


Home Sweet Home

by Eligh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil and Phil are eldritch abomination bros, Getting Back Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eligh/pseuds/Eligh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil and Clint have to head back to Phil's hometown to check on a science division stationed there. The only thing is that Phil's hometown isn't exactly... normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Sweet Home

Phil sits utterly still in his chair, his elbows resting on the very edge of his desk, his steepled fingers just barely brushing his lips. He stares his computer screen down, the email he’d received from Fury over an hour ago still pulled up. The cursor blinks in the ‘reply’ box.

“Goddamnit,” he mutters to absolutely no one, but then drops his hands to their usual position on his keyboard. A quick rattle of keys, a click of a mouse—and he’s past the point of no return. Mission accepted.

With a near-imperceptible wince, Phil leans back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling. Unconsciously, he lifts his left hand and rubs once across his chest, a nervous tic he’s developed since… well. Since he has something there to rub against. His computer dings and he drops his hand, leans forward again, and opens the return email. He reads it, blinks, re-reads it, and then scrabbles for his desk phone, hitting the numbers on the keypad with a rapidity that comes from the backlog of years of muscle-memory.

Phil’s fingers tightenen on the phone as he waits for it to connect. He worries his lip, and then—

“You’ve got to send someone else.” He pauses, his face slipping into a cringe, and shakes his head. “No, sir, but—”

The voice on the other end of the line turns dangerously smooth, and Phil flutters his eyes shut. “No sir,” he mumbles, feeling a bit too teenager-ish for a man of his age. He wants to throw the phone across the room, because _screw_ Nick Fury and screw this assignment, and he wouldn’t have even accepted it if he’d known that _this_ was the outcome. “Yes sir.”

He hangs up the phone, drops his head into his hands, and groans, pathetically grateful for once that his office is window-less and soundproof. He can’t exactly show weakness out in the real world. But here, in this tiny room in the office of one exceptionally interesting high school, he can—if just for a moment—be human.

Two minutes later, Phil lifts his head, straightens his tie, and lets out a breath. He has paperwork to do and things to arrange for his (undoubtedly lengthy) trip. And as cathartic as it is to give in occasionally to the stress of the job, Phil has never particularly seen the point of playing human.

For now, he has more important things to worry about than his emotional hang-ups. He would just have to push the past to the back of his mind, because it would be stupid to not concentrate fully on this assignment.

Ah, Night Vale.

~

“Bossman,” Clint announces himself as he slips through Phil’s door. They’re on the helicarrier, and Phil has spent the last twenty minutes staring blankly at the piles of paperwork that have somehow accumulated on his desk—it hasn’t been _that_ long since he’d last been here, has it? But for now, he just looks up, quickly smothering the lurch he feels at seeing Clint again, and gestures him in.

“Agent Barton.”

Clint flashes Phil a smile that Phil finds himself returning reflexively, no matter how tentative or strained. There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hesitation, and then Clint’s shut the door behind himself and sprawled across one of Phil’s office chairs. His posture’s a little too forced, but Phil can’t blame him. The last time they’d talked had not been pleasant for any parties involved, and no amount of idyllic Tahitian sunsets could have made that reunion an agreeable one.

Interrogations and accusations were not really polite conversation for hospital monitoring rooms, after all. Equally unwelcome were thrown fists and pulled stitches, superhero archers storming out with a bloody nose, and a battered secret agent’s nurses restraining him to contain the damage.

The end result was that it has been months—almost a year, in fact—since he’s seen Clint in person, and Phil isn’t even certain what his erstwhile agent has been up to in the past months while Phil’s been playing educator. They’ve talked—very briefly—on the phone a few times, mostly at Fury’s insistence, but their conversations have been exceptionally stilted and uncommunicative.

For Phil, at least, (though he couldn’t, obviously, speak for Clint) most of the initial betrayal and anger is gone, redirected onto the person actually responsible, but Phil still can’t quite forget the way Clint had shouted at him, had told him it would have been better for everyone if he’d just stayed dead.

“So Nick’s got it in his head that we should start working together again,” Clint says, affecting such an aura of nonchalance that it makes Phil want to—want to do something. He isn’t sure. Pull him into his arms and kiss him, maybe, or possibly punch him again. It’s a little annoying.

“Yes,” he affirms instead, and starts digging for the folder he needs. It’s in one of the locked drawers, but since he hasn’t pulled it out in years, he can’t exactly remember which one.

“We-ll,” Clint draws out, “You call, I answer. What way would SHIELD like to try to kill us today?”

Rather admirably, Phil doesn’t rise to the bait. He finally finds the right drawer and pulls a thick, dark green accordion file from the mess. He has to tug a couple times before it frees itself, like it doesn’t want to leave the comfortable darkness of Phil’s desk.

“You ever heard of Night Vale?” Phil asks quietly, though he doesn’t bother to wait for Clint’s answer, just shuffles the pages of the file briefly before handing it across the desk. This file contains everything SHIELD officially knows about the tiny town, and given how closely SHIELD has been looking into it for the past years, the information is shockingly scarce.

Phil—and other agents like him—is a main source of said information, but since the first rule of Night Vale is, apparently, ‘don’t talk about Night Vale,’ it made intel a little difficult. Phil’d once spent months compiling an exhaustive list of anything and everything he could think of regarding the town, only to find that any hard copies he tried to print off just turned into glossy pamphlets heralding a Night Valeian subway system Phil was fairly certain hadn’t been in place the last time he’d visited. Shortly after that, the printer had lit on fire (the fire had burned indigo), the files on Phil’s computer had started shrieking when he tried to open them, and then his computer melted.

Hence the minimal folder, stuffed with papers of questionable origin and even more questionable cleanliness.

Clint takes the proffered file hesitantly and sinks further down in the chair. “Um. I’ve heard rumors, I guess? There’s some sort of testing site there?”

“Not really,” Phil mutters, tightening his hands on the edge of his desk. He doesn’t like talking about Night Vale when he isn’t in Night Vale; it feels like pushing fate. “Desert Bluffs—the next town over—has some anomalies with their StrexCorp, but that’s not what Night Vale’s about.”

Clint eyes him, his fingers drumming restlessly on the file. “What _is_ it about, then?”

Phil rolls his neck, a sign of nerves and fatigue he wouldn’t have allowed himself to show if it was anyone but Clint, and sighs. “It’s difficult to explain. Read the file, that’ll help a little. It’s a low-profile mission, just you and me, in and out. SHIELD has a team of scientists stationed there, and we’ve lost contact.” Clint raises an eyebrow and Phil shrugs. “Not terribly uncommon, granted, but it’s been almost fifteen months. Usually we would at least get a—a carrier pigeon or something by now.” He watches as Clint mouths ‘ _carrier pigeon_ ’ to himself but doesn’t expand. Clint would read the file, he’d see.

“Fifteen months is a long time to just now start looking,” Clint comments as he flicks through the file at random. It falls open on a sketch of the shape in Grove Park, and Phil automatically glances away.

“Time works differently there,” he explains, silently relieved when Clint flips to another page. “If we sent a retrieval team in after a few weeks, our people would never make any useful observations.”

Clint shrugs. “When do we leave?” he asks as he shuffles to the front of the file and pulls out the first page. It’s stained with something reddish-brown and appears to be charred at the edges. Clint holds it from the corner, carefully grasped between two fingers, and looks like he’s barely resisting curling his lip in disgust. Phil doesn’t blame him; the paper’s emitting a scent that’s vaguely reminiscent of rotting flesh, but moister.  

“We’ll leave Wednesday.” Two days from now. Two days before he would find out if Night Vale would accept him back. More importantly, it would be two days before they found out if it would accept _Clint_ , though Phil thought that it probably would. The city liked people coming in. It was often just that getting back _out_ tended to cause problems.

Phil leans forward, the protective urge to cover Clint’s hand swelling suddenly up from out of nowhere. Fortunately, (unfortunately?) Phil catches himself in time to not actually touch him, though, and snatches his hand back, but not before Clint notices. His face goes carefully blank.

“Phil—”

“Sorry,” Phil sighs, not wanting to get into this right now. Professional, that’s what they have to be, and as Nick has so accurately pointed out, he _needs_ Clint for this. A bow and arrow will be much more useful once they were past city limits than any gun manufactured outside of Night Vale. “Just—read the file, don’t skim it. Night Vale is not like the rest of the world. You need to know the rules.” He pauses. “Clint, I. I don’t want you hurt.”

Clint looks up from the file and stares at him, his eyes clear. “I don’t want you hurt, either,” he says after a lengthy pause. The sentiment’s honest, if a little painful, and Phil can’t quite meet his gaze. Instead, he looks down into his lap and let his face split in a smile that’s far closer to a grimace.

“I won’t be.”

Phil can feel Clint’s attention shifting away, and when he looks up, Clint’s focused on the soiled paper still in his hands. He’s frowning skeptically. “You are aware that this file is stained with blood, right? I mean, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you’re acting weird and so… I’m assuming the rumors aren’t really all that exaggerated?”

Phil considers hedging, but it won’t help them in the long run. “No, nothing’s been exaggerated. If anything, the rumors have been downplayed. I can explain further on the drive down.”

Clint makes a face and drops the paper back into the folder. “Then why do you think you won’t be hurt? You’re not indestructible, you know.” It’s a pointed jab, but Phil won’t rise to it.

Instead, he lets the silence stretch for a moment, still a little unsure how best to react when he hears that dull note of hurt and anger creep into Clint’s voice. Eventually, he sighs. “Night Vale likes me,” he says flatly. “It’s my hometown.”

~

_“Good evening, Listeners. Never cease pondering the inevitability of time, that incessant march down the endless paths of existence. We are all privy to its blind eye, unable to stop it, though we try… **relentlessly**. But it will take us all, in the end. Welcome, Night Vale. _

_Today, I have some very interesting news. Old Woman Josie down by the car lot has emailed the station with news that the angels have told her of the imminent return of one long since lost to us. She reports that at first she thought they were talking about Louie, you know, of Louie’s Music Shop, which burned down years ago?_

_But, dear Listeners, Old Woman Josie writes that after she asked politely for them to clarify, the angels glowed, and I quote, ‘a light brighter than ten thousand erupting suns.’ She also reports that it was immeasurably beautiful, and that in the midst of this glowing, the angels began to chant and sing words of unknowable splendor, finally releasing a cascade of feathers, which, when they touched the ground, burned a **symbol** there. This symbol, dear Listeners, was none other than that of our own vague, yet menacing, government agency. An eagle… or perhaps… a **hawk**? _

_There is, dear Listeners, only one of us who has passed the tests to be taken into this fold, and who has then left our sleepy little town. **You** know whom I’m talking about. We await his return with breath caught in our throats, fingers quivering on the edge of our seats.”_

~

Lola roars through the cool desert evening, twin trails of dust belching up from under her tires. They’re fifty miles outside of Night Vale, give or take. The GPS stopped working a few miles back, and then shortly after that the highway doubled back on itself. But Phil is used to the usual tricks and only drove backwards for a couple minutes before he noticed and made the appropriate adjustments. He’s decided to go off-pavement for the rest of the trip, because for people in the know, the desert track is more reliable for getting you where you wanted to go.

Despite the complete lack of signage, Phil makes the convoluted turnings that aim Lola toward Night Vale with almost no effort, following the gentle tug at the back of his mind with complete confidence. At least now he knows that Night Vale is willing to welcome him back; if it wasn’t, there is no way he could have found the place.

He blows past Desert Bluffs, keeping a distance, unconsciously curling his lip at their windows shining in the setting sunlight.

Speaking of—Phil side-eyes the western horizon and then glances at the car clock, double-checking the time against his wristwatch. It’s as he’s thought; the day is already edging into twilight, though the sun isn’t due to set for another two hours or so. Unfazed and well-versed in the fact that Night Vale time is wildly different from real world time, Phil keeps half an eye on the passenger seat, waiting for Clint to notice the disparity. It only takes another five minutes before Clint frowns out the window, checks the clock, and then pulls out his phone to look at the time before muttering in annoyance, probably at the lack of cell reception.

Wait for it—

Phil twitches his lips in amusement when Clint finally breaks the uneven silence that’s marked their trip to voice concern over the discrepancy between the sunset and the actual time.  

“Time’s a bit fluid out here,” Phil tells him, and Clint makes a face. Phil’s getting used to this particular expression, with its equal parts of disbelief, skepticism, and wariness. He clears his throat, figuring that now is as good a time as any to elaborate on Night Vale’s somewhat eccentric nature.

By the time Phil’s wrapped up his short lecture, the blinking light of KNVR his beacon in the distance, Clint is in fact _still_ making a face and is also pressed against the side of the passenger door, as far away from Phil as he can possibly get. The look he’s leveling in Phil’s direction has morphed into a stronger version of the earlier face, but is now tinged with an added level of outright worry.

Phil lets quiet settle over the car and drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Questions, Agent?” Clint blinks and rallies. _There you are_ , Phil thinks fondly, and cuts his eyes away. He needs to keep a lid on the affection.

“So… SHIELD…” Clint asks tentatively. Phil nods, eager to concentrate on the mission.

“Tries to recruit from town, occasionally,” he completes, “and we have a small outpost staffed with natives here. But people born in Night Vale usually can’t handle leaving. It messes with our minds. I’m a rarity.”

“Anyone else I’d know?” Clint looks like he’s slowly starting to process this whole thing. Phil thinks that he’s taken the bits about the hooded figures and the librarians and the glow cloud and the new mayor quite well, actually. Probably comes with the territory of being a superhero and seeing impossible things on the daily.

“Not anyone currently with the organization. I think there were a couple agents in the 60s, and a few more spread throughout the 70s and 80s.” He glances over at Clint. “Like I said, it’s rare that we can leave.”

“Will _I_ be able to leave?” There’s no disguising the hint of worry in Clint’s voice. “Will _you_ , now that you’ve gone back?”

Phil thinks for a moment. Clint won’t appreciate a flippant answer. “I shouldn’t have a problem. It’s let me go before, and I’ve been back a couple times since then. It should let me go again. And you’re an Outsider. It won’t hold sway over you until you’ve been there for a lot longer than I have plans for us to stay.”

Clint huffs and crosses his arms, slowly unwinding against the seat. “You make it sound like the town’s alive. Does it have a head? I find that things can’t really threaten me if I shoot them in the head.”

“No head,” Phil says, and a smile creeps unbidden onto his face. “But it does have a Voice.” They should be close enough by now. He leans over to click on the radio, and it crackles to life as Phil spins the dial. KNVR is on the AM band but didn’t have any specific frequency, at least not that Phil’d ever been able to pinpoint. After a few moments of searching, a deep and familiar soothing voice spills richly from Lola’s speakers.

“Listen,” he orders, and Clint shoots him a glance. Phil raises an eyebrow. “Just listen,” he repeats, more gently. “It’s the community radio program. It’ll give you a decent idea about what life in Night Vale’s like.” Clint doesn’t look convinced, but they both settle deeper into smooth leather bucket seats and Phil feels himself relaxing to the sound of the radio. It’s been how many years since he’d last heard Cecil’s voice? He can’t really remember.

_“…in response to this **infestation** , the city council has announced a new program, catchily dubbed ‘Slash and Burn.’ Dear Listeners…”_

“This is not, like, _comforting_ me in any way,” Clint interrupts, talking over Cecil’s dire proclamations. Phil smiles tightly.

“I didn’t say anything about community radio being comforting, Agent Barton.”

_“…would like to remind you that **there is not, and has never been** , a lemonade stand outside Floyd’s Stop-and-Go Car Wash. There has **also** not ever been a business called Floyd’s Stop-and-Go Car Wash…”_

“Is he serious?” Clint’s staring at the radio dash in something akin to horror. Phil shrugs.

“Cecil is very often the most serious person I’ve ever met.”

Clint looks, if possible, even more shocked. “You’re on a first-name basis with this lunatic?”

“Cecil is not a lunatic,” Phil chides, and reaches over to turn up the volume. “Be quiet, I want to hear this.”

_“…so I leave you, dear Listeners, to ponder your existential crises while I take you to…[ _ **the weather**_ ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC91ZbcO5ps%22)_

“That was not a weather report,” Clint protests three minutes or so later, albeit a little weakly. Phil fights down another smile. In the background, Cecil’s soothing voice harshens while he editorializes on the City Council’s new edict of mandatory haircuts.

_“…now I **know** , Listeners, that semi-sentient lice are a real problem for our little community…”_

“You get used to it, once you understand Cecil’s method. It’s going to be cold and clear tonight. There’s a possibility of dust storms tomorrow.” He smiles despite himself. He can’t help it; the closer they get to town, the giddier he gets, his nerves loosening with each unfolding mile. He hopes that this is a good sign. “Good weather for screaming at the void.”

“I used to think you were boring, you know?” Clint says dryly, but when Phil looks over at him, he’s grinning. “Book club, knitting circles, you know.”

“Knitting circles are far from boring,” Phil says with an arched eyebrow. Clint snorts and leans back, stretching against Lola’s leather seats. Phil swallows and looks away. It isn’t Night Vale’s fault that he’s lost Clint. It probably _was_ Night Vale’s fault that he’s around now to suffer that, but making the initial decision that had gotten him killed was all on his own head. At least—at least he still has a chance of a semblance of a relationship—maybe a friendship, or more likely a sort of thinly-veiled antagonism—with Clint, as painful as it might be in the here and now. Honestly, he’d take pretty much anything, if it meant he still got to see him.

“We’ll be fine,” Phil says, businesslike and forcing himself away from maudlin thoughts. Clint shoots him a glance, but doesn’t comment. “We just need to find the team, ascertain their well-being, and get out.”

“You think they’re still there?” Clint asks. He did not add on, ‘ _alive?_ ’ He doesn’t need to.

Phil sighs. “They might be. If we’re lucky, they’ll be mostly unharmed.” They’re getting into the town proper now, passing the used car lot and an oddly-glowing house. Phil points them toward the radio station, because if anyone in town knows anything, it’s Cecil. He glances sidelong at Clint, who’s now mouthing ‘ _mostly unharmed_ ’ to himself. Phil sighs again and presses his foot down a little harder.

~

“Phillip!”

Phil beeps the lock on Lola and turns with a wide smile to the man emerging from the side door of the KNVR station.

“Cecil, hi.”

“It is soo good to see you!” Cecil gushes, his luminescent tattoos swirling with delight up and down his dark arms, their movement only visible when they aren’t being directly observed. His hair glows electric white under the orange moon, and his grin’s a hint too wide to be strictly human, his teeth sharp.

Good old Cecil, he hasn’t changed a bit.

Phil lets himself be swept up into a tight hug, though he’s acutely aware of Clint’s glare at his back. “It’s good to see you, too,” he says, pulling back and holding for a moment longer onto Cecil’s slender hands. “Didn’t think I’d be back again so soon, honestly.”

“It’s so rare!” Cecil agrees with a chirp. “Oh, Phil, so much has happened since I’ve seen you last. I have—” a falters a little, a twinge of nerves flittering onto his face. “Now, don’t be upset, but…”

Ah. Phil can’t help how his grin widens. He and Cecil haven’t been involved in years, but trust him to worry about hurting Phil’s feelings. “Cecil, did you meet someone?”

All trace of nerves fly from Cecil’s face and he sighs, utterly smitten. “ _Carlos_ ,” he breathes, and Phil laughs a little, even as a small light of recognition dings in the back of his mind.

“He’s—”

“A _scientist_ ,” Cecil interrupts, and a good majority of the weight that Phil’s carried all through their drive out makes a good show of mostly evaporating. If he’s thinking of the same man that Cecil’s talking about, SHIELD’s worry for their scientific division is probably mostly unfounded. Cecil’s acceptance is as good as Night Vale’s acceptance, so Phil can relax a little.

He turns to the side and gestures Clint forward; Cecil’s eyes slide past him and light up at the sight of someone new. “Cecil, this is Clint Barton. He’s…” Phil hesitates in the form of a quick breath, “my colleague at SHIELD. Clint, this is Cecil Palmer, the Voice of Night Vale.”

“Hey,” Clint mutters, coming around Lola to shake Cecil’s hand. Cecil beams at him.

“Colleague? No, no, no, you don’t need to be shy, your aura!” Cecil pumps Clint’s entire arm with both hands and Clint looks torn between being spooked and admiring the twisting tattoos that dance across Cecil’s forearms. “Honestly, I don’t mind, it’s wonderful to meet you, I’m thrilled Phil’s found someone, especially since I have _Carlos_.”

Clint makes a small noise that possibly could be negation at that, but doesn’t outright deny Cecil’s assumptions. Phil sharply squashes the resulting traitorous surge of hope and refocuses, switching on Agent Coulson mode. “Cecil, you know I’m not just here for a vacation.”

Cecil drops Clint’s hand, and Clint looks startled when a couple of the tendrils encircling Cecil’s wrist seem to stick smokily to his palm for a moment. He blinks rapidly in the way that Phil knows means that he’s decided to ignore the impossible for the time being, and Phil has to fight not to smile affectionately.

“Oh, no,” Cecil enthuses. “Is it terrible news?” He looks entirely too excited at the prospect of something terrible, but that’s Cecil down to the ground.

“Not terrible,” Phil says carefully. “Curious. SHIELD—”

“Our very own _vague, yet menacing government agency,”_ Cecil interrupts, slipping down an octave and into his radio voice. Phil can practically hear the italics. Clint hides a snort of amusement, Phil shoots him a Look, and Cecil appears entirely unaware of their exchange, blithely continuing, his eyes falling to half-mast and a small, pleased smile slipping onto his face. “ _For what purpose do they send you? Are their motives ever really known? Is **anything** ever **really** known_?” His tattoos writhe darkly, and his shadow flutters in the dim streetlight illuminating the parking lot, looming more than is, perhaps, strictly necessary.

“Their motives, in this instance, are entirely transparent,” Phil says hurriedly, before Cecil can drift further. After a moment, Cecil blinks slowly back to reality. His shadow retreats, sinking apologetically into itself, and his tattoos still. Phil is, as usual, unsure if he’s actually seen anything out of the ordinary.

“Sorry.” Cecil bites his lip fetchingly, and affects a look of complete and utter innocence.

“Don’t be,” Phil says, shaking his head, amused. He never knows when Cecil’s actually being contrite, but odds are that right now he’s screwing with them. _Jerk_ , he thinks affectionately. “We’re looking for a group of scientists who were sent to do some preliminary investigation here.”

And… that may have been the wrong thing to say. Cecil’s tattoos (which are definitely not moving and have probably never moved) freeze in shock, and his eyes widen.

Alarmed, Phil holds up his hand non-threateningly. “We’re not interested in making them leave, or doing anything to them. At all. They just fell out of contact, and we’re concerned about their well-being.”

“Oh!” Cecil’s grin is abruptly back, unmovable movement once again starting to crawl on his arms. “ _Carlos’_ scientists are just fine. They have a lab by Big Rico’s, but I think they were out at the house that doesn’t technically exist, today.” He glances up at the sky and then at a pocket watch he pulls from his waistcoat. It has no hands, and the symbols Phil catches a glimpse of are not in any way numeric.

Regardless: “They might be back by now, come on.” And with that, Cecil sets off across the parking lot at a quick jog. Phil makes an abortive gesture toward Lola, but then shakes his head in exasperation and follows. Clint catches up with him after a few steps, his fingers lightly brushing over Phil’s elbow. Ahead of them, Cecil begins to chatter aimlessly about town gossip, and Phil half tunes him out.

“You’re in a good mood,” Clint mutters over Cecil’s exclamations about lightning damage to the passing buildings.

“Night Vale,” Phil murmurs back.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Yea, you _are_ aware that that’s not an explanation? You were freaked when we left New York. What happened?” They cross the street, still trailing a happily chattering Cecil. Clint stares for a second at a passing hooded figure, until Phil snaps his fingers to get his attention.

“Don’t look at them. And, I don’t know. It’s somewhat… nice? To be home.” Phil shrugs. Silence drifts between them, filled distantly with Cecil’s smooth voice.

“…lifting the ban on writing implements any day now! Carlos is _so_ thrilled…”

“Writing implements?” Clint snorts a little awkwardly, casting a glance in Cecil’s direction. Phil shrugs, a small, content smile on his face. Clint, seeing this, sobers slightly, and a hint of possessiveness leaches into his voice. “You have history with him, don’t you?”

“Does it matter?” Phil returns, a little sharper than he’d intended. It’s true, though. Clint presses his lips together, clearly annoyed.

“No, I guess not.”

They walk in silence for a couple blocks, letting Cecil’s ramblings wash over them. Phil doesn’t take in a single thing he says, not really. He’s too concentrated on Clint stalking down the street at his side. He doesn’t usually question Nick, but he’s starting to think that it’s a mistake, bringing Clint. They clearly can’t work together, not yet. They’re still too raw.

“Here we are,” Cecil says suddenly, and Phil nearly runs into him, too busy thinking to notice that Cecil’s stopped walking. They’re standing in front of a plain, grey building, sagging in the slightly dilapidated way that many buildings around Night Vale do. There’s a retinal scanner to the side of the door, though the plate has been popped and wires are hanging out. Phil eyes it mistrustfully.

Cecil steps up to the door and raps sharply, calling out, “Carlos! Other scientists! Hey, someone let us in!” There’s a pause, then a rattle on the opposite side of the door, and a woman with ruffled hair and wide eyes opens it with a creak.

“Yea?” she asks, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Oh, hey Cecil, and—oh shit, Agent Coulson. Hi. How are. Are you? Are we in trouble?”

Clint stifles a giggle and Phil takes a slow breath. “Doctor Janis. No, you’re not in trouble. May we come in?”

She blinks at them, uncomprehending for long moments, then shakes her head and nods. “Sorry, yea.” She steps back apologetically and gestures them in. Cecil bounces past her down the hallway, shouting for Carlos while Phil and Clint follow at a more sedate pace.

Inside, the building’s a little sleeker than the outside, though not by much. There’s a server and a few monitors set up in the first room off the hallway, then a bathroom, then another bathroom (which appears to be an exact replica of the first one, complete with identical wear). There’s also a sign on the second bathroom’s door that reads ‘ _Warning: VORTEX. Do Not Use_.’ Phil gives it a wide berth.

The hall ends at a large, open plan room that probably takes up the majority of the building. There’re a few desks shoved off to one side, a mass spectrometer at the back of the room, and several tables scattered with various chemicals. One wall’s entirely covered by a large shelving unit stacked with countless opaque boxes, all labeled with various signage that reads vaguely unsettling things. ‘ _Unidentified Goop_ ’ takes up three shelves to itself, and seems to be glowing slightly.

There are a few people scattered throughout the room, all bent over something, all looking extremely busy. Cecil’s sidled up to one, a middle-aged Mexican man in a dust-stained labcoat. “ _Carlos_ ,” he says, and the man looks up, his face softening into a sweet smile when he sees who it is.

“Hey, baby,” he murmurs, and leans in for a short kiss. Next to Phil, Clint looks down, inspecting his shoes.

“ _Carlos_ , you have guests. From the vague, yet menacing—”

“Why does he say it like that?” Clint asks sotto voice into Phil’s ear. Phil shakes his head.

“Because he’s Cecil.”

“—government agency. It’s Phil! And Clint.”

“Phil?” the scientist asks, looking up. His eyes widen when he spots Phil. “Oh, Phil Coulson! And, uh, Barton? What’s… is something wrong?” He abandons whatever it is he’s working on (soil samples of some sort) and wipes his hands, stepping around the table to come talk to them.

“Doctor Sandoval. Carlos,” Phil says, nodding. “Nothing’s wrong. But you haven’t contacted SHIELD in over fifteen months. Agent Barton and I were sent out to ascertain your well-being.”

Carlos blanches. “Fifteen months? We—we sent off our latest report just a couple days ago.” He glances around at his colleagues. “Guys. Right?” The assembled scientists blink their shocked alarm at one another, then turn as one to glare at a large grandfather clock ticking away steadily at the back of the room. Carlos breathes in deeply through his nose and then pinches the bridge of it between his fingers. “Cecil, what day is it?”

“Wednesday,” Cecil says immediately. Carlos shoots him an unimpressed look. “The eleventh,” Cecil amends. “Of March.” The scientists all groan.

“Dammit,” Carlos mutters. Phil breathes out slowly through his nose. Well, that explains it.  

“Clocks?” he offers. Carlos sighs.

“Clocks,” he affirms, resigned. “I thought we’d found one that worked.” He gestures toward the back of the room. “Take it apart, guys. Apparently we lost a few months. Again.” The rest of the scientists drop whatever they’re doing and advance on the grandfather clock. A couple pick up hammers. One finds an axe.

Clint looks confused. “Phil, it’s… uh. November, isn’t it?”

“It’s convoluted,” Phil not-explains, taking pity on him. “Like I said, time’s a bit… fluid. It will probably still be November when we leave again. Probably. Clocks don’t really work right in Night Vale.”

“They’re all fake,” Carlos grumbles, running his hand through his hair as he half-listens to their conversation. He looks a touch greyer in the temples than Phil remembers, but also doesn’t seem to be overly upset at the prospect of being caught in what’s probably a little over a year’s worth of a time loop. He’s adjusting, then. “And full of blobs with teeth,” Carlos adds, with a pointed look toward a bin on the wall that’s simply labeled ‘ _Don’t._ ’

“As are so many other things,” Cecil comments sagely. Carlos looks at him, his eyes widening in alarm.

“What _else_ is full of blobs with teeth, Cecil?”

Phil turns away from them, tuning out whatever new horror Cecil is imparting, and looks at Clint. “Night Vale,” he says with a shrug. “This is actually quite tame. Time loops are fairly common here. I went through my sophomore year of high school four times before I got unstuck.”

“Tame,” Clint echoes weakly, though he’s nodding slowly. “Sophomore year. Okay. So, you know there’s apparently a vortex in the bathroom? I’m also pretty sure one of those cages behind you is holding a chimera.” He pauses and breathes out shakily. “It looks like a baby?”

Phil glances over his shoulder. There is, indeed, a lion/goat/snake thing curled up in one of the cages, snoring gently. The cage next to it holds a floating green blob, that as Phil watches, forms itself carefully into an approximation of a hand. After a moment of apparent contemplation, it gives him the middle finger.

“How sweet,” Clint murmurs, sounding a little strangled. “Phil, this place is weird.” Behind them, Carlos and Cecil are bickering, something about how Cecil should _tell_ them when time isn’t working right, these are the sort of things Carlos wants to _know_ , and if he’s in the middle of the time loop, how’s he supposed to notice?

“Come on,” Phil says, nudging Clint away from his inspection of the blob. It’s transformed itself into a mirror of Clint’s face, and if Phil’s reading its lips correctly, it’s mouthing some very rude things. There’s a crash from the back of the room, and one of the scientists shouts in victory, raising the grandfather clock’s pendulum over his head. “Let’s go to Big Rico’s. I could use a slice of pizza.”

“No pizza,” Cecil interjects, taking time from what has apparently devolved from an argument into vaguely inappropriate touching. “Wheat and wheat-by-products turned into snakes.”

“And then they turned into demon. Things,” Carlos adds, pulling his hands from where they’d been resting on Cecil’s lower back to rub at his temples. Cecil pouts; Carlos ignores him. “But Big Rico makes a mean bowl of marinara sauce and cheese.”

“Not literally mean,” Cecil adds helpfully, pulling Carlos’ arms back down. “Well. Surly, sometimes. But everyone has bad days.”

Clint frowns and looks concerned. Phil, per usual, takes this in stride. “Then I could use a bowl of marinara and cheese.” He touches Clint lightly on the elbow. “Come on.” Clint shakes his head but follows gamely when Phil leads the way out of the lab.

~

Phil cuffs Clint lightly on the side of the head, reaching over the table and narrowly avoiding dipping his sleeve in his bowl of marinara sauce and cheese. “I said not to look at them.”

Clint drags his eyes away from the hooded figure waiting in line and instead shoots Phil an affectionate look. After a moment, though, he seems to realize what he’s done and drops his face to zero, turning his attention to his own bowl. “Hasn’t this town heard of gluten-free?” he grumbles half-heartedly. He sounds a little strained.

“Mm, probably not,” Phil admits, taking a small spoonful. They settle into an only slightly awkward silence that Phil eventually breaks by clearing his throat. “Did you, I mean. Would you like me to show you around? No telling the next time you’ll be able to see Night Vale. And the threat to our team wasn’t really all that threatening, so we sort of deserve a break.”

“Not unless you count getting laid by weird radio-show hosts as a threat to scientific discovery,” Clint mumbles, poking listlessly at his sauce.

“I don’t, generally.” Phil smiles. “So, see the town?”

“Am I allowed to talk about it when we get home?” Clint asks, finally looking up from his food.

Phil shrugs. “Sure. People probably won’t believe you if you talk about it, but nothing I’ll show you is classified. I was thinking more along the lines of sightseeing, rather than work.” Clint nods and looks down.

“So we’re staying here tonight?” he pokes at a blob of cheese. It squeaks, and Clint pushes the bowl away hurriedly. Phil eyes his own with a bit more trepidation.

“Yes? I should check in with our regional division while we’re here, too. They let power go to their heads sometimes and it’s always good to remind them that they do in fact report to someone outside the city limits.”

“Well that’s not disconcerting at all,” Clint deadpans, and Phil smiles into his bowl. A blob of cheese, apparently annoyed with his indecision on eating it, glops up against his spoon hopefully. Phil makes the executive decision that he isn’t overly hungry after all, and pushes his bowl away as the bell over the door dings, opening mid-conversation on Cecil and Carlos.

“—not coming on the show, I’m not interested in being reeducated, you know.” The doctor seems thrilled in his exasperation, and Cecil looks likewise pleased with his pout. Phil’s unsurprised; experiencing wildly conflicting emotions is more than routine for Night Vale. He stands up and brushes down his suit.

“If it’s any help, Doctor,” he says, peripherally aware that Clint’s cleaning up their dishes, “the Sheriff’s Secret Police were instructed not to reeducate you or any of your staff.” He slips his hands into his pockets. “It upsets the internal validity of your reports.”

Carlos stares at him for a moment, then shoots Cecil an unimpressed look. “That would have perhaps been good to know.”

“I didn’t know that anyone was immune to reeducation,” Cecil disclaims, raising his hands in surrender. “Though, this may be interesting to the citizens of our community.”

“I don’t think the residents as a whole need to know that, Cecil,” Phil says mildly, and Cecil sighs.

“Yes, I suppose some may find that demoralizing,” he mutters, but then brightens noticeably. “Phil! Do you have plans for tomorrow? Just that it’s been so long, maybe we could catch up!” His eyes flash with excitement. “We could have a double date!”

“I—” Clint winces and shakes his head. Phil lays a steadying hand on his arm and smiles gently at Cecil.

“Agent Barton and I are not involved, Cecil.” And then he immediately feels terrible when the smile drops from Cecil’s face.

“Oh no! Phil, I’m so sorry, I just assumed, because your auras…” He gestures between the Phil and Clint, who shoot each other sidelong glances. Carlos rolls his eyes and goes to the counter to order, carefully giving the hooded figure (which has settled at a table directly in the center of the restaurant) a wide berth.

“Our auras are doing what, Cecil?” Phil asks, curious despite himself.

Cecil huffs. “They’re mingled. You’re practically one being, Phil, and you know what that—”

“Stop,” Phil snaps quickly. Above them, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling flicker twice before settling back to their usual buzzing hum. Phil takes a breath and then repeats himself more calmly. “Stop, Cecil. Sorry, but.” He glances at Clint, who’s staring at him, his eyes wide. “Not here,” Phil finishes lamely.

Cecil smiles, though it’s slightly wary. “Riiight.”

Phil crosses his arms and pointedly doesn’t look in Clint’s direction. “We’re going to go check into our hotel, okay? We have some business in the morning, but then I was planning on showing Agent Barton around the town. If you’re interested, I’d appreciate you coming along? You’d probably be a better guide than I would, after all my time away.”

Cecil’s face splits into another smile, more sure of himself this time around. “Of course!” He turns and calls over his shoulder. “Carlos, do you want to come with us tomorrow? I’m sure Phil and Clint would love to hear your Outsider’s perspective of our little town.”

“Um,” Carlos pauses in the middle of shaking a large amount of parmesan cheese and pepper flakes into his bowl at the counter, and looks over. “Sure? I don’t think I have any experiments in any critical stages…”

“Excellent!” Cecil claps his hands together. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then! Come by my house at—when?”

Phil finally glances back at Clint, who’s watching him, his face utterly blank. “I think we’ll be good to go around noon. That gives us a few hours before you have to get to the station, right?”

“Noon,” Cecil confirms, and then plops down in a chair as Carlos places a bowl of marinara (no cheese) in front of him. “You remember where I live?”

Phil smiles. “I do.” They say their goodbyes, and then Phil turns back to Clint, gesturing for him to precede him out the door. Clint’s gaze flickers slightly, obviously wanting to ask Phil about the lights and what it was that Cecil had been talking about. Phil resigns himself to a long and probably unpleasant conversation once they’re checked into the hotel.

~

“There’s something weird going on,” Clint observes from the doorway of Phil’s hotel room. Clint’s leaning against the jamb, the very picture of nonchalance, but Phil knows better. He smoothes his hand across the bedspread and sits down.

“Oh?”

“Yea,” Clint says. He takes a step in and shuts the door behind him. “I’ve known you for—what? Fifteen years? Seven of which we were sleeping together, _living_ together, Phil, so trust me when I say that I know you’re acting weird.”

“It’s Night Vale,” Phil murmurs. “It’s… affecting.”

Clint shakes his head. “Totally not a good enough explanation. And I’m like, the _opposite_ of unobservant, yea? You made lights flicker when you raised your voice to Cecil.”

“It’s just—”

Clint glowers. “Don’t say ‘Night Vale.’”

“It _is_ ,” Phil stresses. “Really. There’s nothing—”

“Stop _lying_!” Clint shouts, taking a step into Phil’s room and slamming the door shut behind him. Phil winces very slightly. At least Clint is giving them the courtesy of some sort of privacy. “You’re a worse fucking liar than Nick is, Phil!” Clint gestures to Phil’s chest. “This is why I can’t be with you, cause the man I love shouldn’t spend his entire life fucking feeding me half-truths and deflections. I didn’t even know you were from this town, I thought you were born in Chicago!”

“That’s the cover,” Phil says miserably, and Clint throws his hands up in exasperation.

“Of course it is. Because why would you tell your partner anything remotely approaching the truth? It’s not like trust matters in relationships, after all.”

“It does, just—”

“No,” Clint snaps shortly. “I don’t want to hear it. Untangle your goddamn aura from mine or whatever the hell it was that Palmer was talking about. I can’t believe Nick made us work together again.”

With that parting shot, he turns on his heel and stalks out, leaving the door gaping open behind him.

“Sorry, Phil,” comes a voice, muffled through the barely-cracked window. “That sucked.”

Phil rubs his hand over his eyes. “Yes.” He pauses. “Is that Arnie Smith?”

“Yea,” the voice returns, sounding pleased at his recognition. “Good to have you back, man.”

Huh. Phil had gone to school with Arnie’s older sister. “Thanks. It’s pretty good to be back. I didn’t know you were Secret Police.”

“Just passed the tests a few months ago.” There’s a proud note to Arnie’s voice that makes Phil smile.

“Congratulations. Well, I think I’m just going to try to sleep. I probably won’t be particularly interesting.”

“That’s okay,” Arnie says. “I’ll be here.”

So he would. Phil sighs and loosens his tie, already dismissing the police presence and concentrating on other things, like what, precisely, he was going to tell Clint. The truth was starting to look a shade more appealing.

~

The next morning passes uneventfully. Clint is professional, if emotionally chilly, all through their inspection of the Night Vale division of SHIELD. Phil doesn’t see too many things out of order there, though he has to have a stern talk with the commanding officer about government resources being used for cave-based wifi and HBO. He loses track of how many times he has to explain that missing Game of Thrones is not a violation of a prisoner’s rights, according to the Geneva Convention.

He isn’t even going to _start_ thinking about their exorbitant helicopter budget, though he quite likes the new paint jobs they’ve applied. And if the covetous look he catches Clint shooting the birds is anything to go by, he isn’t the only one.

The only worrying anomalies are a few blips from their instruments in Desert Bluffs. Phil makes several notes to himself (with the CO watching Phil worshipfully when Phil nonchalantly ignores the ban on writing instruments) about discussing SrexCrop’s future with Nick once they’re back to the real world. No one wants _that_ shitstorm escaping out of the area, and he can’t say that it’s a good sign that Station Management sold them KNVR.  

Noon approaches quickly, and as Phil and Clint slide themselves onto Lola’s leather and Phil coaxes her engine to life, he shoots a glance over at the passenger seat. “Do you still want to come look around the town with me?”

Clint’s quiet for long enough that Phil looks away in resignation. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. It’s looking more and more like he and Clint are never going to be able to get past this issue. With this in mind, it’s no shock that he’s severely startled when Clint abruptly nods.

“Yea. Like you said, when’s the next time I’ll be able to come to Night Vale?” When Phil looks over at him, Clint’s staring out the window. “’Sides, Tasha’ll kill me if I don’t.”

Not wanting to press his luck, Phil lets the silence stretch for the rest of the ride to Cecil’s. Fifteen minutes after leaving SHIELD’s base, he pulls directly into the driveway of an adobe, square-roofed home, a house that for several years of his life had been more familiar than his own. Cecil’d moved here shortly after he’d started his internship at KNVR, when they’d been seniors in high school. That Cecil had somehow purchased the property without the help of his family hadn’t been odd at the time, and other than a passing, ‘hm,’ Phil’d still never found it particularly weird.

“If he offers you orange milk,” Phil warns Clint a moment after he rings the doorbell, “don’t drink it. Trust me.”

Clint hums noncommittally, but after a grinning Cecil ushers them in and suggests refreshments, he politely declines the drink when Cecil (predictably) offers it.

“Carlos doesn’t like it, either.” Cecil grins ruefully, and at his elbow, Carlos rolls his eyes.

“No one likes it, Cecil. Just you.”

Before Cecil can launch into a diatribe about regional delicacies, Carlos redirects the conversation, pointing out a few key items of interest on a map of Night Vale that Cecil’s pinned, for some inexplicable reason, to the underside of one of the couch cushions. “I figure we could take a walk through Grove Park and have lunch,” he says. “And I just bought new earplugs, so we could go see the Whispering Forest if you want. It’s really quite beautiful, as long as you don’t listen to it.”

“ _Especially_ if you listen to it,” Cecil amends, and Carlos shrugs.

“You don’t want to listen to it, not if you want to leave,” he tells Phil and Clint, and Phil utterly believes him. He’d been called back when the Forest had first appeared, and it was no trivial matter. Still, it was also far from the strangest thing he’s seen in Night Vale.

“We can go to the Museum of Forbidden Knowledge,” Cecil chirps. “They’ve got a new exhibit that just opened.” He chuckles. “I’m not sure what it’s about, but if I did, it wouldn’t exactly be forbidden knowledge, would it?”

“Let’s just start with the park,” Phil suggests, glossing over Clint’s incredulous look. “Lunch sounds good.”

~

Grove Park is much as Phil remembers it, if colored by years of life. Literally colored—Phil isn’t one for flowery metaphors—as a good portion of the park appears to have been rendered in varying degrees of sepia tone. It certainly helps the nostalgia factor, though Clint looks alarmed when their clothing takes on a brownish tint.

Cecil leads them on a circuitous path, one that winds a respectable distance away from the Shape, and they end up near a lake, flanked by large and forbidding black trees. It’s quite the romantic spot, one Phil actually remembers quite well from when he and Cecil had been fresh-faced teenagers, and one Cecil and Carlos are apparently well-familiarized with in the current day.

The lunch Cecil’s packed for them is good, if a little strange. The sandwiches don’t protest being eaten (even if Phil can’t quite place what meat they’re filled with) and conversation flows easily, for the most part. Carlos and Clint seem to hit it off quite well, comparing notes taken in an Outsider’s eye on oddities they’ve spotted around town.

They’re getting along well enough, in fact, that Phil lets Cecil drag him off for a quick thanks at a public bloodstone circle, leaving Carlos and Clint to their own devices for a few minutes. Phil doesn’t practice anymore, obviously, but Cecil’s relatively devout. You somewhat have to be, if you’re local.

“Does he know?” Cecil asks as they step through the edges surrounding the circle. There’s a ripple of energy as he crosses the invisible barrier, and Phil rolls his shoulders. He wants to stretch out and let himself go, but he doesn’t do it. He shouldn’t.  

He’s also not going to play that he doesn’t know what Cecil’s talking about. “No. He’s human.” Phil picks up a small stone and glances over his shoulder toward where he can see Clint and Carlos, barely visible at the edge of his periphery. “I’ve been thinking about telling him.”

“It’s not like you can manifest if you’re not in Night Vale,” Cecil points out, and Phil makes a face.

“I—”

“I’m serious about your auras,” Cecil adds as he drops to his knees and assumes his usual prayer position. He turns his head up and opens his third eye, pointing it into the vortex spiraling up away the stones and into the void. Phil kneels, too, knowing that anyone outside the circle won’t see anything unusual. He flexes his shoulders again and Cecil huffs. “Just do it.”

Fine. Phil takes a breath and pushes his lumbering way through the membranous veil of this reality. His wings—all nine of them—unfurl down his back, appearing seamlessly through his suit jacket. Cecil grins at him, sharp, all his rows of teeth on display. Phil bends down, the clawed tips of his too-many fingers digging into the dirt. It has been a long time since he’s done this. Since he’s let himself out.

He opens innumerable mouths. " **He won’t love me if I show him who I am.** ”

**Don’t be stupid,** ” Cecil reprimands him, and then slips back toward his more human visage, dark skin, white hair. “He obviously loves you more than life.”

Phil snaps his wings and then sucks them back in. He stands and brushes off the knees of his trousers. “I left him. I let myself get killed, and out there—” he gestures, meaning the real world, New York, anything that _isn’t_ Night Vale “—I don’t remember how. I barely remember _why_.”

“It’s because you’re human out there,” Cecil observes. He goes prostate for a moment, touching his head to the dirt, and then stands, wiping away his third eye. His tattoos sink back down into two dimensions. “I don’t like you being sad.”

Phil twitches his face into a smile. “I’m not sad, not really. I miss him. But he’s human, through and through. I’m only… mostly. I don’t even know how I would explain it.”

“Show him,” Cecil shrugs. “I showed Carlos.” He touches a slender finger to his chin, contemplative. “I’m not entirely sure he _remembers_ it, but he’s aware of something.” With a jerk of his head, he leads them out of the circle again. “We’re supposed to find partners that aren’t like us. They ground us, Phil. We _would_ lose our humanity without them.”

“I have friends,” Phil says archly. “I’m aging and everything. I’ll probably even die eventually.” He frowns. “Of natural causes, at least.” Cecil shoots him a look, and fine, Phil knows that having friends wasn’t what Cecil’s talking about.

They’re halfway up the hill when Cecil let out a pleased, ‘ _Ooh!_ ’ and disappears off the trail in pursuit of… something. Phil rolls his eyes. Cecil always gets especially distractible—and hungry—after he manifests. Phil just finds that everything seems sharper; he doesn’t seem to have any behavioral components.

He leaves Cecil to it—the Voice is safe enough in his own city—and trudges the rest of the way up the hill toward where Clint and Carlos are still stretched out on the blanket Carlos insisted they pack. It was obvious that Clint hasn’t heard his approach, though Carlos’ eyes flick toward him once, and then back to Clint, dismissing him.

“He’s a good man,” Carlos is saying, and Phil stills, half-behind one of the arching trees. “I worked with him as my liaison for several projects before I came here.”

“I’m not arguing that he’s a good man. He’s the best person I’ve ever met,” Clint says softly, his eyes fixed on the sepia-shaded sky. “And I love him so much it hurts.”

Carlos sighs. “You’re just being stubborn. I was stubborn for over a year after I met Cecil, but it takes the whole almost-dying thing to realize what I could have been missing because of, I don’t know, pig-headedness.

“That’s just it,” Clint says shortly.

Carlos arches an eyebrow. “What is?”

“He _died_ ,” Clint says shortly, and Carlos looks distinctly unimpressed. He shoots a glance over Clint’s shoulder, meeting Phil’s eyes, and crosses his arms.

“He appears to have gotten better.”

“I know!” Clint snaps, and then clenches his hands at his sides, tightening his grip on his bow. Quieter, he goes on. “He just… showed up one day a headquarters. Just about gave everyone a heart attack, even Fury, and that—that was something. But he has no idea how it happened, or _what_ happened. He remembers getting stabbed in the battle and then waking up in our—in his—apartment.

“He was still hurt—bleeding really bad, and I know he’s got a scar, but they shipped him off to Tahiti and that, apparently, is that. We fought when he was recovering there.” He falls silent and plucks at his bowstring aimlessly. Phil’d told him he didn’t need to bring it, but a Clint without a bow is an anxious Clint. “He’s lying about something, too. I don’t know what.”

Phil—Phil really should say something. Anything, really, to let Clint know he’s there, but he feels frozen to the spot. He had been fairly positive that the scene at the Hub had been a dream. The first coherent memory he had from after the battle was waking up in a bed in Tahiti.

Carlos hmm’ed in thought, unaware of Phil’s internal crisis. “It’s Night Vale,” he eventually concludes.

“Aand that’s what he’ll say,” Clint mutters, resigned. “You _are_ aware that that’s not really an answer.”

“It sort of is.” Carlos shrugs. “You know Cecil?”

Clint barely resists rolling his eyes. “I am well aware of _Cecil_ , yes.”

“My boyfriend,” Carlos counters with a hint of reproach, and Phil smiles a little helplessly, jolted out of his shock. Clint’s adorable when he’s jealous. Meanwhile, Clint’s wincing apologetically, and Carlos is waving it off.

“Cecil’s died three times in the past six months.”

“He’s… wait, what?” Clint asks, confused. Phil blinks in alarm, too. “He’s…”

“He’s from Night Vale,” Carlos explains patiently. “And the city seems to like him, and probably doesn’t want him dead.” He holds up a finger, silencing Clint’s questions. “I am… I may not be a medical doctor, but I’m certainly well enough versed in biology to tell you that being flattened by a meteor, stabbed in the throat with a—supposedly—cursed dagger and bleeding out, and being enveloped and exsanguinated by a cloud that emits feelings of doom and despair—all mortal wounds.” Carlos looks down, probably because Clint was gaping at him.

“And every time, he’s shown up at my apartment a couple days later, maybe with a couple scars and a frighteningly blank spot in his memory… but the point is that he shows up. He doesn’t _actually_ die.” He sighs and rubs the back of his head. “Granted, watching him die has been absolutely no fun, but the whole apparent immortality thing makes it a hell of a lot easier.”

“What the fuck?” Clint asks, apparently to himself, though Carlos shrugs again in response.

“I’m just saying—maybe he’s scared, too. Cecil doesn’t like it when I bring up the blank spots, and it’s not like he can _help_ it. I’m just happy he can come back to me.”

“What are you doing?” says a quiet voice in Phil’s ear, and Phil nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Don’t do that, Cecil,” he snaps. Cecil grins toothily at him (there was a hint of red at the edges of his teeth; Phil isn’t going to ask) and nudges him in the side.

“Come on,” Cecil says, and drags him into Carlos and Clint’s line of sight. “Perfect Carlos!” he calls out. Carlos rolls his eyes. “Let’s go! I want to see the new exhibit at the museum!”

~

“So,” Clint says hesitantly as Phil pulls Lola into the hotel parking lot. “That was an interesting day.”

After the museum, they’d pointedly avoided the dog park, stopped for a chat with Josie and her—friend? Phil still isn’t sure; Josie’s acquaintance kept sliding out of his awareness, even though he’s positive he’d talked to _something_ —and then visited the jail for a press release courtesy of the incarcerated mayor, Hiram McDaniels. Cecil is, apparently, an avid supporter. Phil isn’t sure how an imprisoned dragon had been elected to public office, but like so many things in his hometown, wasn’t going to question it.

They’d dropped Carlos off at his lab and left Cecil at home, where he’d been preparing his usual incantations and pleas for before he went on-air. They’d offered for Clint and Phil to stay for dinner, after the show, but Phil had declined. He wanted to get decent sleep so they could leave in the morning. It was probably going to be mentally taxing to get out of the city and he needed to be on his game.

Cecil had whispered something in Clint’s ear before they left, too, and Clint had come away from the house looking thoughtful. His comment was the first time he’d spoken in perhaps twenty minutes.

“It was nice to walk around the town,” Phil agrees. “It hasn’t changed much since I lived here.” He turns off the engine and twists in his seat, a little hesitant. He’s been thinking about what Cecil had said all day. “Listen—”

“I want to talk to you,” Clint says, interrupting. “But I want you to think about things, first. I’m going to my room.” He fixes his steel eyes on Phil. “If you decide that you want to tell me the truth—truth as you know it, even—then come over. If you can’t do that, don’t bother.” With that, he clicks open the door and disappears into the gloom of the early evening.

Phil sits in the car for almost ten minutes before he follows, and then hesitates again in front of Clint’s door for almost a minute. Finally though, he lifts his hand and raps sharply.

Clint opens the door immediately. He must have been standing there, waiting. “Hey.”

“Can I come in?” Phil asks, and Clint takes a step back.

Phil steps past the threshold and can’t help but feel the significance at this. It seems like a portent. He narrowly avoids cringing.

Clint closes the door with a click. “Okay. No more lying.”

“No,” Phil agrees, and loosens his tie. Now that he’s here in Clint’s room, there’s just no other choice. “You should sit down. I won’t—just, sit down. I need to show you something.”

Clint sits, and Phil immediately drops to his knees and rummages under the bed. All the hotel rooms in Night Vale came equipped with bloodstones, though they keep them stored away so you can only find them if you’re looking for them. Phil’s fingers collide on the cool metal of the storage box and he yanks it out. Clint frowns. “That wasn’t there before.”

“No,” Phil says, distracted as he unlatched the box. “I mean, yes. It was. You just couldn’t see it.”

“I can see everything,” Clint grumbles, and Phil can’t help his smile.

“You see exceedingly well for a human,” he corrects gently. “Better than anyone I’ve ever come across, and I’ve had quite some time to look.”

The smile that flits onto Clint’s face is a hesitant one. “You say that like you’re… Phil. You’re freaking me out a little.”

Phil finishes the arranging the stones into a rough circle around himself. He doesn’t want to take the time to set up the proper prayers and beggings, but this is enough for him to channel his energy. He doesn’t actually need the stones at all, but they certainly help. It would at least be easier for him to maintain his shape.

“I’m not human,” he says shortly, and, goodness. He didn’t think getting that off his chest would feel as good as it did. But Clint already looks wary, and Phil sincerely hopes that that wariness won’t morph into terror when Phil let himself go. “You can ask me whatever questions you want, after.” He looks up and takes a breath. “Just ask before we leave Night Vale. I have a hard time remembering details when we’re not within city limits. Hell, you might, too. I don’t know.”

He closes his eyes and lets himself… spread.

When he opens them again, Clint’s staring at him, his mouth hanging open. “Holy fuck,” he whispers. Phil flexes his wings (one of which promptly snaps out and breaks the chair next to the bed) and ducks all of his heads sheepishly. He’s gone all out, full manifestation.

It is… mortifying.

“ **So this is what I’ve been—this is what I look like. Really. Sort of.** ” If he’d had skin at the moment, he’s sure it would have been flushed bright red. Clint just keeps staring, and so Phil shrinks back into himself. Clint twitches forward in his chair.

“Wait, hold on.” Phil pauses his transformation and Clint’s eyes grow. “Can you—you’ve got _wings_ , Phil.”

Trust that to be the feature Clint picks out. “They’re uneven,” Phil growls petulantly, his voice almost back to his usual human register. “I accidentally tore some off a few years ago. And then _Loki_ —” he cuts himself off, and finishes shrinking back down. “Huh. I remember what happened. That’s new.”

Clint’s clutching the arms of the chair, white-knuckled. 

Phil steps out of the bloodstone circle. “I’m not sure what I am,” he says, apologetic. He wants to gather Clint up and hug him close, but doesn’t. There’s fear in Clint’s face. He recognizes it easily. “There’s a few of us like me, here. Not exactly—none of us look alike. Cecil’s one, too.” He looks down. “He has more tentacles, less eyes.” He has an insane urge to scuff his shoe against the threadbare carpet of Clint’s hotel room.

Clint is apparently still speechless.

The urge to scuff his shoe becomes too much to bear, so Phil sits nervously on the edge of the bed. “I—I’m almost impossible to kill. There’re all sorts of rules, though. Night Vale’s somewhat—it’s located on a thin patch of reality. I can only manifest like that here, or in other places where reality’s also thin. There’s only a few scattered around the world. There’re two in Japan, actually, it’s sort of weird, they’re within a few blocks of each other in Tokyo.” He shakes his head and gets back on track. “Night Vale’s the largest, square-mileage-wise.”

He licks his lips. “Most of the time, I’m just human. I can barely remember any of this when I’ve left.” With a sigh, he drags his hand over his face. “We’re—people like me—we’re supposed to live as humans. If we stay like that, we lose grip on reality. If I have human connections—friends, lovers—then I age, have a normal life. I like being human, even when I have a few… extra-normal tics. I’m not thrilled being—” he waves his hand ineffectually. “—that.”

“I knew your ability to wrangle SHIELD paperwork was supernatural,” Clint murmurs, and Phil is so surprised that he bites out a laugh. Clint stands up. He’s breathing heavily, like he’s just run ten miles. Phil sobers.

“So…”

“So you being _that,_ was what let you live?” Clint asks.

“Yes. I’m not completely clear on the details. I know that Loki stabbed me, and that I died a little, but not completely. He hurt another wing, and I tore it off before I came back.” Phil grimaces. “I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this well.”

“Where do you come from?” Clint asks, taking a step closer.

“My mother? I was born, at least. I didn’t appear out of thin air. As far as I know, she wasn’t like this.”

“When did you realize you were—?” Another step.

“I was nine. I fought a librarian and came out without a scratch.”

Clint blinks at that, but Phil’d explained about the library yesterday, so he just continues on. “The thing with the lights yesterday?”

“I forget that I’ve got power when I’m here,” Phil admits. “I don’t when I’m back home, but here, me being angry or annoyed can have more physical consequences.”

“What’s with the stones?” Clint slides forward another foot.

“They’re bloodstones. They help me center energy. People here pray to them.”

“Do people pray to you?” Even closer.

Phil’s head is starting to spin from the rapid-fire questions. “Not that I’m aware of.”

Clint takes another step, and he’s practically on top of Phil, looming over him. “Why did you lie to me?” He sounds lost, and Phil’s heart breaks, just a little.

“I was afraid you’d leave,” he whispers. “I’m still afraid you will.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Clint whispers back, and his hand comes up and cups Phil’s face. “I won’t.”

Phil’s arms snake out, completely out of his control, and wind around Clint’s waist. “You’re not disgusted by me?”

“I’m a little freaked,” Clint tells him honestly, “but I can handle it. B’sides, Phil.” He leans down and noses at Phil’s cheek. “You came back to me. I’m so sorry, I—”

“No,” Phil soothes. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“I love you,” Clint says, and Phil cuts off further conversation with a kiss. It’s long and heated, everything Phil’s missed for the past year, and Clint’s knees buckle when he falls down to join Phil on the bed. Phil lets himself be pushed back, Clint’s hand steady pressure on his chest.

“I missed you every day,” he tells Clint. “Like a limb. I’d go to reach for something in our apartment and it’d slip through my fingers because you weren’t there.” Clint makes a soft, sad noise against his throat, but Phil can’t seem to stop his babble. “I wanted to tell you, Clint, I did, but I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t have words, and how can I explain something like—like what I am? I _shouldn’t_ be.”

“I work with a guy whose entire physical form was changed one-eighty by a serum,” Clint says, serious and low for all that he’s working the buttons on Phil’s shirt open, “and an alien, whose brother stole my mind, opened a portal in the sky, and tried to lead another kind of alien in an invasion of Earth. There’s a genius asshole who’s designed his own suit of flying armor, and a guy who breaks the laws of physics simply by existing. And Tasha.” He pauses so he can push the sides of Phil’s shirt open.

“I’m very open minded, Phil. You secretly being a—an eldritch abomination? It’s nothing.” He presses a kiss directly over the scar next to Phil’s heart. “Plus, you’ve got wings, even if they’re kinda scary and oddly sharp, so that’s pretty cool.”

Phil snorts out a laugh at that, and pulls Clint up so he can kiss him again.

They don’t talk for a while, after that.

~

“Where’s our rendezvous point, sir?” Clint asks Phil the next morning. They’re checked out of the hotel and loading their meager bags into Lola’s trunk.

“There should be a bus waiting for us in Albuquerque to take us back to the helicarrier,” Phil tells him, and watches as Clint limps for a moment before rubbing his lower back and straightening up. “Hey,” he says, and catches Clint’s hand as he walks by. “You all right?”

Clint grins at him and lets Phil lever him closer. “Just contemplating how long I’m gonna have to sit on my ass. Lola’s seats are nice, but I’ve been sorely abused, sir.” 

“Hm.” Phil leans against Lola’s side and then tugs again. Clint comes willingly, slotting himself between Phil’s legs and leaning in, his fingers twisting at Phil’s lapels. Phil kisses him once, soft and slow. “Who’s this person who’s been abusing your ass? I might have to have words.” He flashes Clint a teasing smile.

“I duno, sir,” Clint mumbles. “Rumor has it he’s a stone-cold motherfucker, though.” He leans in, and his lips brush against Phil’s ear when he says, “I heard he’s not even human.” Phil closes his eyes and smiles.

“Oh, I’m so happy!” The voice behind them startles Phil and Clint apart, and when Phil twists around, Cecil’s standing at Lola’s front bumper, a too-wide smile on his face.

“Hello, Cecil,” he says, and ineffectually tugs the lapels of his jacket down, trying to smooth out where Clint’s wrinkled the fabric. “Come to see us off?”

“Yep!” Cecil practically chirrups, and his smile, impossibly, grows wider. He takes a step closer. “You—?”

“I told him,” Phil affirms, with a small nod.

Clint’s nose crinkles as the penny drops. “You told him to?”

“I find that honesty is, at least seventy percent of the time, the best policy,” Cecil says sagely. “And if it’s too much, pretend you didn’t see anything, and drink to forget.”

“Wise,” Clint tells him earnestly.

“We-ll,” Cecil draws out, and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Carlos says ‘bye,’ too.” He smiles. “Isn’t he neat? He’s taking me to a book reading this afternoon. It’s the latest publication of wailings by the Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your House. So he had to work, so he could take the afternoon, and couldn’t come send you off.”

“Tell him we had an excellent time,” Phil says. “And that he should keep an extra eye out for temporal anomalies. SHIELD worries.”

“ _Don’t we all_ ,” Cecil intones immediately in his radio voice. And then he smiles and says, more normally, “Come visit again, soon! The city _likes_ you.”

Phil resists shaking his head at that mildly ominous statement. “Perhaps,” he says, instead, and Clint shakes Cecil’s hand before vaulting himself into Lola’s passenger seat. Phil pulls Cecil in for a short hug before following, at a touch more dignified pace. “We’ll see you soon,” he calls as he starts the car.

“Bye, Phil!” the bushes call out, and Phil bites down a smile when Clint turns and stares.

He pulls out of the parking lot with his hand on Clint’s leg, a smile on his face, and Cecil waving happily to them in his rearview mirror. It had been a good trip, and maybe, just maybe, Nick had known what he was doing when he assigned them to go together.

Ah, Night Vale.  

**Author's Note:**

> Couple explanations, if you’re interested. 
> 
> My Cecil headcanon is that he’s ethnically Navajo, but for inexplicable reasons has pure white hair. He certainly doesn’t dye it, and I have no idea why it looks like that. If he tells me, I’ll let you know. 
> 
> I gave the station the call sign of KNVR because radio stations in the southwest (where I’m from) all start with K. NVCR would not be a call sign, but KN(ight)V(ale)R(adio) could be. 
> 
> The weather's by Alt-J, which I know is a bit more well-known than the usual WTNV fare. But the song fit, and it's one of my favorites, so... author's prerogative? 
> 
> Phil doesn’t remember specifics of what he is/looks like when he’s not in Night Vale. He’s knows he’s Something Else, but generally doesn’t worry about it. Hence his confusion about Tahiti. 
> 
> I mostly characterized this particular Phil off how he’s portrayed in Ultimate Spider Man, which I’ve spent the last couple days binging on. Eh, the show makes me laugh. Clint’s heavily influenced by Fraction’s portrayal. 
> 
> Finally, it’s unlikely I’m going to write Night Vale again. I love it to death, but it is difficult to write.


End file.
